


i am this great, unstable, mass of blood and foam

by funkymoths



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon? Don't Know Her, Dancing, F/F, I am HOMELESS I am A LESBIAN I am MADE OF BUGS I’m NEW IN TOWN, Monsters in love, jonny sims can meet me in the fucking pit, only vaguely a roommates fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-05 22:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17927822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkymoths/pseuds/funkymoths
Summary: "It was a cold evening, colder than it should’ve been for March, when Jane Prentiss met the ringmistress."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title is from autoclave by the mountain goats because i'm gay and like good music

Jane Prentiss was close to death when she escaped the Magnus Institute. A roughly corpse sized pile of worms was enough to convince the bumbling archive staff that she’d perished after the building was flooding with CO2. It had weakened her greatly, but it wasn’t enough to kill her entirely. By all accounts, it should’ve killed her, but Jane figured she was too far gone to be able to die easily anymore.

She didn’t know how long she spent alone, in decaying city slums rotting from the inside out. The bugs and worms that thrived in the dank underbelly of every town were drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. Jane made her home in the alleyways, surrounded by cockroaches and the occasional rat.

Passerby tended to ignore the homeless, she discovered. The white-collar workers rushing to their high profile jobs wouldn’t notice the deep holes in your hand as you begged for spare change, or the dark bloodstains on your hoodie as you slept on the sidewalk, or the short silver worms crawling over your face as you wait in line at a soup kitchen.

As time went on, Jane’s connection with the hive seemed to wane. The glorious unity she’d once felt with the worms and the insects was dying; it was becoming less and less of an ‘us’ and more and more of a ‘her’ and ‘them’. That wasn’t to say the worms didn’t come to her. The hive had yet to abandon her fully. Holes in her skin that worms had once crawled through with ease began to close, leaving ugly red scars and scabs. Each time another worm burrowed into her arms, or her legs, or her face, the pain was unimaginable. The honeymoon phase was over, and all Jane was left with was hundreds of worms and agony where there had once been love.

It was a cold evening, colder than it should’ve been for March, when Jane Prentiss met the ringmistress.

A light rain began to fall, and Jane pulled her hoodie tighter around her. The alleyway was dark, with almost all light blocked out by the tall buildings on either side. From the other side of the alley, a figure appeared.

The woman was tall and lithe, at least six feet tall, with a dancer’s poise. She wore a black velvet top hat, tilted at a jaunty angle, and was dressed like a circus ringmistress, with a red tailcoat embellished with golden buttons and epaulets. Her hair was a fiery red, cut into a bob, but it didn’t seem to fit correctly on her scalp, as though it was some sort of wig. A lion tamer’s whip was attached firmly to her belt. As she got closer, the glow of a nearby streetlight illuminated her face. Her features were slight, and her skin was deathly pale, with stitches and seams along her chin and hairline that made it look as though her face had been sewn on. She smiled.

“Jane Prentiss, I presume?” The woman bent down to look at Jane, her movements eerily fluid and unhindered. Her grey eyes were blank and pupiless.

“Who wants to know?” Jane looked up, pulling her hood off her face and revealing her damaged visage. The woman chuckled.

“My name is Nikola Orsinov.” She grinned widely. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Prentiss. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hm.” Jane hesitated for a moment. She stuck out her hand so Nikola could shake it, but to her surprise, the other woman planted a kiss square on Jane’s withered, rotting hand. “You’re...like me? Aren’t you? Claimed by...something.” Nikola smiled.

“It’s a rather long story, I’m afraid.” Nikola held out her dainty gloved hand and helped Jane to her feet. Dead worms and beetle shells tumbled out of the folds in her hoodie as she regained her footing.

“I have time,” Jane said.

“Perfect!” Nikola grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me, though. We have much to discuss.” Jane looked over at the pile of dead bugs, old blankets, and fast food wrappers she’d been sleeping in for the last month and a half, and back at Nikola. Even if this strange woman did mean her any harm, it wasn’t like there was anything Jane would be missing. Her failure at the Magnus Institute had been humiliating, and her Hive powers were leaving her more and more by the day. Jane shrugged.

“Where are we going?”

Nikola led Jane through the streets, on an almost nonsensical path. Passerby gave the pair strange looks; Jane, with her hood pulled over her face and worms crawling over her skin, and Nikola, with her circus getup and strange way of moving. Nikola told Jane about what she called “the fourteen”, a group of what could be called gods representing different fears. They vaguely reminded Jane of those Lovecraft novels her college girlfriend had been obsessed with, even after Jane told her that Lovecraft had been a massive racist. Nikola said she served one she called “The Stranger”, but she spared many of the details. “The Corruption” was what Nikola called the power tied to Jane. It was linked to rot, infection, and feelings of revulsion and disgust. It was ironic, Jane thought, that the thing that made her feel most alive was the physical embodiment of decay.

“You know,” Jane was saying. “I used to believe in pagan gods and all that. Even worked at a crystal shop. Deep down, I knew it all wasn’t real, but I guess I was wrong. It’s just more...horrifying.”

They stopped at a wax museum. Jane couldn’t tell if it had been abandoned, or if its owners had chosen to never clean it up. The building’s cherry red paint was chipping away, showing off the original brick underneath. A sign above the only entrance reading “WAX MUSEUM” in faded blue letters was the only way Jane was able to identify what the building was. Nikola stepped up to the door, turning the tarnished handle and stepping inside. Jane followed close behind, shutting the door behind her. The room was dark, with dim spotlights illuminating molding wax figures. Dusty red carpet covered the floor, and dust flew into the air with Jane’s every step. As Nikola led Jane past the wax figures, their glassy eyes seemed to follow her, watching her every move.

“Here we are!” Nikola stopped walking at a grimy looking door at the back of the showroom. She smiled.

“Where is here, exactly?” Jane asked.

“Your new home!” Nikola said, reaching for the doorknob.

“Hold on,” Jane put her hand over Nikola’s, holding the door closed. “You didn’t say anything about that.” Nikola pouted and shrugged.

“The streets don’t suit you, Jane.” She twisted her hand, until she held Jane’s in a firm grip. “I need help with something, and I simply can’t stand to see you suffer. You’ve held my interest for quite a while, you know.” If Jane’s face hadn’t been full of holes and nearly destroyed by worms, she would have blushed.

“Uh, thank you.” Jane gave a small smile. She didn’t fully trust this strange woman yet, but. Nikola opened the door, still holding Jane’s hand. The room was small, with a desk, a small cot, and a tall stack of mannequins and other parts that used to belong to wax statues. On top of the cot, there was a folded t-shirt and jeans.

“I hope this is enough, dear,” Nikola said. “I can always get anything else you need.” She nodded. “If you’d like a minute, I can…” Gesturing to the door, Nikola took a small step back.

“Thank would be nice, thank you,” said Jane, as Nikola closed the door. Jane let out a tired sigh and collapsed onto the cot. Its weak frame creaked under her weight. She picked up the folded clothing. They were oddly stiff and waxy, and Jane immediately knew they’d been taken directly from one of the wax statues. The grime and dirt on Jane’s ratty hoodie were almost comforting to her, but Jane had acquired the sweatshirt after the peculiar, worm-related death of a creepy junkie that had taken up residence in her alleyway a few months before, and Jane figured it was slightly disrespectful to keep wearing it. Even though she was an avatar of a god of decay and made partially out of worms, she wasn’t a complete monster.

The carpeted floors of the museum’s main room creaked loudly with Jane’s every step. Although the spotlights on the creepy wax celebrities were bright white, the rest of the room was cloaked in darkness. Nikola stood on the threshold of the doorway, talking to a young woman standing outside. It took her a moment, but Jane recognized the woman as Sasha from the Magnus Institute. There was something small off about her, that Jane couldn’t place. Sasha said something unintelligible, and Nikola laughed. Her laugh was clear and loud, but there was an eerie resonance to it, like a church bell that tolls at a funeral.

“Jane!” Nikola grinned from ear to ear upon seeing her. “I see you found the clothes I left out for you. I do hope they fit.”

“Yeah, thank you.” Jane awkwardly stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans, one of the holes in her hand accidentally catching on one of the belt loops.

“Sasha here was just leaving,” Nikola said, glancing over her shoulder back at Sasha and nodding. Sasha nodded back and turned to leave. The door shut behind her.

“I-” Jane started, but Nikola cut her off.

“It’s getting late, Jane dear.” She grabbed Jane’s hand and looked deep into her clouded eyes. “We have much more to discuss.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I know this chapter is short. I don’t know how words work.

The Unknowing approached. Nikola spent more and more time away from the museum, and would often returned covered in blood, even though she assured Jane it wasn’t her own. The pair of strange delivery men stopped showing up, and it was though the museum had gone silent. Really, the only company Jane truly needed was The Hive, but that didn’t stop her from missing Nikola.

“Jane, love? Are you awake?” Nikola had returned from one of her little excursions in the dead of night, her voice ringing out from the main hall of the museum.

“We both know I can’t sleep anymore.” Jane lingered in the doorway of the small storeroom she’d come to call her home. “You’re home late.” Nikola was sitting on the base of one of the wax statues, more specifically the nameless one Jane thought might be Bill Clinton, sprawled out like a lazy cat. She was absentmindedly fiddling with a busted up AM radio, which was faintly playing classical music.

“Sit.” Nikola straightens to, making a place for Jane to take a seat. Jane sat down; she was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Nikola. “I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?”

“After the ritual, the new world we’re going to make.” Nikola said. She took Jane’s hand in hers. “You and I, we make a great team, you know.”

“We do.” Jane squeezes Nikola’s hand.

“And you make a very...powerful...ally.” Nikola placed her other hand on Jane’s cheek, tilted her face toward her. Jane’s heart pounded in her chest. If Nikola breathed like most people do, Jane was certain she would’ve felt her breath on her face. “Just think of what we could do, dar ling. Together.” As Nikola inched closer, the small AM radio sitting in her lap tumbled to the ground. As it collided with the ground, the knob controlling the volume cracked off, and Jane could hear the radio announcer’s voice at full volume.

“Coming up next, we have a great piece of music for all you, listeners..” The host’s voice crackled in the radio’s poor speakers. “This is ‘The Last Dance’ by Peter Gundry. Enjoy.” A piece of classical music began to play, distorted slightly by the broken radio. The tune was haunting, with violins and what sounded vaguely like a calliope organ. Nikola got to her feet, and extended her hand to Jane, much like she had in that damp alleyway so long ago.

“Care for a dance, Jane darling?” She bowed, removing her top hat. With some apprehension, Jane placed her hand on Nikola’s, and Nikola pulled her to her feet.

“I don’t know much about dancing.” Jane confessed.

“That’s alright.” said Nikola. “Place your hand on my shoulder, and hold my hand with your other.” She carefully guided Jane’s hands to where they should be. “My hand goes on your waist, like this.” As she placed her hand there, she drew Jane ever so slightly closer to her, their faces now centimeters apart. Jane’s whole body felt as though it had been set ablaze. “Follow my lead.” Nikola led Jane in a simple dance, which was mostly rhythmic swaying, and stepping in various directions to the music. Jane found she wasn’t half bad at dancing, for someone who had skipped her senior prom.   
  
Nikola was a perfect dancer. As Jane was tripping over the hem of her dress, Nikola’s movements were precise, and fluid, as though she was a marionette being controlled by a puppet master with their hand on the strings. She spun Jane, and suddenly Jane wasn’t worried about slipping, or falling, or missing a step. Together, they were the sun and the moon, spinning in harmony, a small galaxy all on their own.

“I think,” Nikola said, smiling at Jane, “You do know a lot about dancing.” Jane could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “After all, dancing is less of a science, more of an art form.” Nikola slid her hand backward to better support Jane’s weight, and dipped her. They lingered there for a moment, Jane leaning backwards, and looking up into Nikola’s eyes. Then, as the music swelled, Nikola leaned in, and kissed Jane firmly on the lips.

It was times like these Jane was glad the worms hadn’t completely wrecked her mouth.

Jane melted into the kiss. It reminded her of the tender relationship between her body and the worms that called it their home; it was a pleasant symbiosis. Every cell in her body felt charged with lightning, and electricity, and every one of Nikola’s movements was a lightning rod. The two of them stayed in that moment for what seemed to Jane like forever, and not long enough. Nikola drew Jane to her feet, her motions gentle. They broke apart slowly.

  
“Nikola, I…” Jane cupped Nikola’s face in her hands, grinning like an idiot. She pulled Nikola’s face towards her, and kissed her again.

And the music played on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song they were dancing to actually exists! go check it out, it’s super good.
> 
> also thank you so much for reading! :)
> 
> my tumblr is @units214 and I’m always free to talk about the Magnus Archives!

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @units214


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